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Well I just had my first try on the C#m Posth. Nocturne and as I thought, the right hand is not impossible for me.

What I noticed is that - as my hands are relatively small(I can play an octave but beyond that it starts to be too much stretching) - the left hand arpeggios were quite challenging for me.

I'm sure it will take not more than few months to handle the notes, I'm kinda motivated on this one. And it's less than I thought. I'm not even going to discuss about the perfect interpretation part. I'll let you guys know about my problems / development on the subject.

Maybe one day you'll see me playin it on youtube, cheers!

PS. loveschopintoomuch: I am a he actually.

Excellent. It's a lovely piece and I'm sure you'll do it justice. Good luck and make sure you keep us informed on your progress. Most importantly, have fun!

Hi Curious123: Sorry about the gender mistake. I also have a lot of trouble with the left hand arpeggios. I just can't seem to remember them, and I don't know why. But it is such a wonderful piece and so worth the effort to learn.

Please let us know how you are doing. And remember Chopin's famous quote: Practice is the best teacher and time the best critic. (or words to that effect).

Kathleen

Kathleen, I think you just had a Freudian slip. Patience is the best teacher.

I’ve been taking some private mazurka lessons-- dancing not playing, that is. I’ve wanted to find someone to teach me some form of this dance for years, and have finally connected with the local master teacher of folk dance, Gary Diggs. When I first spoke to him about it, he tried to dissuade me, warning me that it’s really, really hard and I would be frustrated and have to spend an awful lot of hours. Guess what-- it IS really hard. Very different from any kind of dance I’ve done before. I'll need to remember that "patience is the best teacher." Oh, well, it will help stave off Alzheimer’s. And it’s not as breathtakingly complicated as some of the Hungarian footwork Gary demonstrated for me yesterday.

It seems like our Fryc must have had both more leg muscle and more lung power in his youth than we might think; staying out late dancing this very bouncy, high-velocity sort of dance would have required a good deal of stamina.

Gary wrote something about his experience with practicing violin that seems pertinent here: “The thing is, you have no idea of how hard I had to work, how many hours of sweat, frustration, and pushing against immovable objects I had to endure to only suck this badly.”

For Mark and others who have joined us recently, just a little more about Delfina Potocka. A portrait of her that resembles the Stevenson angel much more than the one Mark mentioned is a painting by Delaroche that depicts her, so very inappropriately, as the Madonna. It’s a bit odd. The lady is looking up into the heavens with an expression that appears bored and exasperated rather than reverent-- like “why me, Lord?” She seems to have no connection to the beautiful child sleeping in her lap.

You can see it here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delfina_Potocka_jako_Madonna.JPG

As is the case with portraits of her friend Fryderyk, in the pictures we see her hair often appears dark rather than the correct blonde color, and as with him, various portraits look so different from each other that it’s hard to visualize the real person. We do know for sure that she was considered attractive, that she had a shocking number of lovers, and more importantly, that she was a fine soprano and played the piano well.

We also know for certain that Mme Potocka was not only Zygmunt Krasiński’s friend and muse, but the love of his life, even after his father pressured him into marrying someone else. Her relationship with Chopin is less clear; at the least, they were dear friends from 1832 until the end of his life, but the official historical record tells us little more. My understanding is that they were lovers for some period of time between 1832 and 1835. Many people who knew them assumed that they were, and Frycek, if I remember correctly, thinks it’s true on the basis of “where there’s smoke there’s fire.” Which I think is reasonable. But there’s no way to prove it on the basis of written history, and in fact there is some evidence against it. (Do NOT pay any attention to the fraudulent letters that were “discovered” in the 1940s.)

Elene

I learnt the first half of that a while back. I also have tiny hands (physically no wider than an octave, not to mention being able to play an octave cleanly) and found that with a little pedal, it's quite manageable. I found it much more difficult trying to fit upwards of 35 notes into the 4 note arpeggio. That stinks.

I'll still be practicing that run 10 minutes a day for the forseeable future. I mastered the rest awhile back.

Oh, you got me on that quote, Frycek. Have I been misquoting him all this time? The correct quote, according to what I found on the Internet is:

"Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher."

What a prophet he was, especially with the "patience" part. I confess to getting quite frustrated when playing some of his music. I am going to print out this quote and paste in on the inside of my eyelids.

And I agree with Frycek. That 35 note run is a bear. I still practice it (with patience) several times a day and still have to keep my fingers crossed each time I play it.

I'm off to see Beethoven today.

Kathleen

Hi Kathleen, I hope you enjoy Hershey's performance very much (just can't imagine him as Beethoven though) and look forward to you telling us all about it when you get the chance.

Actually, Hershey's not playing Beethoven, he's playing a friend of his looking back.

Ah, that explains it... thanks Frycek.

But what of the musical content? At the piano, is he still portraying a friend ... who just happens to be extraordinarily skilled at reproducing Beethoven's music?

Steven

Kathleen will explain all.

I just did a double take while listening to the radio when I realised that a song had exactly the same melody as Chopin's 10/3 (might have been in a different key). The song was called "No other love" by Jo Stafford. Has anyone ever heard this and are there any other songs that have their foundations in Chopin's music? I have never heard of any of these before.

There have been a number of them! The best known are probably "No Other Love," "'Til the End of Time" (Polonaise Op. 53) and "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" (Fantaisie-Impromptu).

I think they're kind of awful, but Chopin is hardly unique among composers in having his music used for this purpose; Bach, Clementi, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky have been similarly exploited, and surely there are others, too.

Steven

Yeah, several of Chopin's very singable melodies have been stolen for popular songs. That particular one, from 1950, was actually written/plagiarised by Joe Stafford's husband.

IMO the most unpleasant theft of this kind is Gainsbourg's 'Lemon Incest'.

Pop musicians steal a lot from Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, and many other classical composers. Many non-classical music listeners who say classical music is boring have no idea when they listen to some classical melodies.

I never knew there were so many! I'll listen out for some more.


Thats an excellent point. Next time someone says it's all boring...

I think those who find classical music boring would still be bored by recognizable melodies (no matter how familiar) in their original classical contexts.

When I was growing up, "easy listening" music was popular among an older generation of people who had turned their backs on popular music—people who loathed rock 'n' roll or whatever it was that they thought "kids" were listening to. Even though the preponderance of the melodies were written by musicians associated with pop and rock (like, for example, Lennon and McCartney or the Brill Building songwriters), they were only palatable only when eviscerated and reconstructed into the kinds of non-threatening arrangements used for elevator music (i.e., no percussion but lots of violins).

Steven

I dunno about Chopin, but a good example of succesful stealing of classical melody for pop version is Celine Dions All By Myself. I mean the song is great, right?

And it's straight taken from Rachmaninoffs Piano Concerto 2, 2nd movement.